Enter, the Untamed Man
by bowels
Summary: Mr. Gold, in his time spent in the distorted world of Happily Ever After-turned-Storybrooke, has lost his raw, inner-beast. Fleeting thoughts of Belle, though, rattle the cage where Rumpelstiltskin lies dormant. When Belle comes back, what will happen?
1. Beautiful

**Author's Note:**  
><em>Hello, readers! I'm Hannah, and this is my very first EVER fanfiction! I was inspired by 'Skin Deep', and I just had to chase my wild dreams o<em>_f my Rumpel/Belle obsession.. I will go down with this ship! xD But, yeah; all reviews, critiques, WHATEVER are appreciated! According to how interested people are will determine whether or not I continue, just because.. well, I'm a noob, and you know how these things work. xD_

_Anyhow, enjoy the very short, first read! :3_

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><p>Skeptically, Emma Swan unlocked the creaking door, rust crunching against pebbly concrete.<p>

"You're free to go, Mr. Gold." Her voice drew out suspiciously, her narrowed glance heatedly set upon the free man.

Mr. Gold nodded with an irritatingly chivalrous smile, and his weight levied onto his polished cane as he strongly hobbled out from the temporary hold. Something foreign glinted behind his eyes, though it went unnoticed by the concerned sheriff; she was too harried over why the mayor would pay off his bail.

"Well, thank you for making our time spent together a pleasant one. You did well." He complimented edgily, the same breath of a lie shrouding his words. "I hope to see you again soon. Perhaps next time, you'll be able to fulfill that favor for me."

Emma, perturbed, watched Mr. Gold carry himself out of her homely little station, the familiar scowl dressing her expression. Something didn't sit right with her about him.

* * *

><p>Mr. Gold sighed. Winter and Spring had begun a long line of scuffles, a glimmer of warmth poking out from behind the snowy front, yet the sun misleading the true weather; though it held itself strongly in the sky, shedding a charitable, welcoming light upon all, an unforgiving cold hissed through every chilly breeze, distorting the beautiful picture. He didn't care; it was a small price to pay for leaving that cell so soon. Perhaps if Regina didn't know his dirty little secret he'd send her a fruit basket.<p>

Reminiscent, he delved his free hand into his deep pocket, his spindly fingers fondly brushing against the small piece of porcelain hidden within. When his rough fingertips coasted along the jagged tip, just as fresh as the first day it'd been placed, he poured all of his willpower into biting back a frown.

Belle. Thinking about Belle was strange, like a fevered dream. In Storybrooke, he was what she'd so desperately wanted him to become —a man, and of sound man. His free, disturbing nature was locked away and put on hold, stowed away with all the other purities of Happily Ever After. Some days, he pondered—what did he like better, his days as Rumpelstiltskin, a beast of power and temptation, or Mr. Gold, a demanding, well-established man? When he was riveted by the simple motions of Storybrooke, the answer was simple; he loved being Mr. Gold. After all, he wasn't one to dwell on what was lost, and here, things were so much more corrupt, and it was much easier to blend into the woodwork as yet another broken human.

Oddly enough, though, Belle always popped into his head; Belle always popped into his head, with her charming, girlish smile, and made his views melt away. When he thought of her and the way her buxom brown curls flowed, though, the beast within him rattled in its cage—thirsty, hungry, and lusting to return to the world of old. Even if it meant transitioning into the very thing Belle had tried to save him from (which, in his dulled state of might he could understand), it also meant returning to a time when she had existed. Here, she was just the legends of a little boy named Henry.

He shook his head. Frustrated, he withdrew his hand and carried his ambling gait back to his shop. Either way, he was a man of symbol; a manipulator of dastardly magic, and a man of influence and cash. With his barriers thrown up, he reverted to his traditional mode of thinking; he hadn't really wanted him. He'd been a beast; she must have had some ulterior motive behind that kiss.

_That_ kiss. That beautiful, sweet, treasured moment…

No. That was a moment of his weakness and of her strength. There was nothing between them except lies… but even this thought couldn't fight back the pain as he thought of her untimely end. Dreaming about what exactly went through her head made him internally shiver, and then harden. He had bigger things to attend to.


	2. Return to Basics

**Author's Notes**:  
><em>Well, thanks for all of the support! 3 reviews, and about 500 hits; I don't know if that's a lot, but it's certainly enough to keep me going! (: For those of you who are still reading, thank you a dozen! :3<br>_

_I understand that, seeing as I'm starting a fanfiction halfway through a running series, this can get messy; therefore, I plan on making this SOMEWHAT work with the coming episodes. I'll vine together what I can, but overall it'll become it's own thing after the 'Skin Deep' episode. Also, I know this is mostly filler, but I'm trying to set about important events, as well as give important information before things REALLY take off!_

_Leave many, many reviews, and read/favorite/WHATEVER my story please! Feel free to bash/gush over my story; everything helps! :3  
><em>

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><p>"That was a low blow—using Henry as bait." Mary Margaret agreed lightly, sipping on her morning coffee.<p>

Emma nodded, wiping the sleep from her eyes before stretching. "You're tellin' me. Then she just slipped me a check for the bail, and he was free to go." Broodingly, she poured over her black coffee, and her trademark scowl dressed her face evenly. "God forbid something go according to _plan_ in this town."

Just as she finished her sentence, Ruby twirled down the bar, a steaming kettle of coffee in hand. Gladly, she filled their cups, a look of undying curiosity beaming on her face.

"Maybe they're having a love affair—something top secret and completely forbidden." She chimed in suggestively, wiggling her eyebrows in a fancy display.

Emma rolled her eyes in disgust, and Mary Margaret chortled with a surprise giggle.

"Already caught her in _that_ situation…" Emma muttered with disdain under her breath, beyond their hearing.

"Star-crossed lovers…" Mary Margaret began sullenly, causing Ruby and Emma's air flow to come to a complete halt. "Sounds like the rest of this town. Real romance is a joke here, isn't it?" She ended with a sorry laugh, nervously glancing between the two of them.

Ruby, without shame, openly seethed, her shoulders shrugging forward in one awkward motion. Innocently, she put her hands up, expressing her regret for treading on such tender ground before inching aside, tending to whatever else the little diner needed.

Emma frowned. With as much sympathy as she could muster, she pressed a hand on her shoulder, a thin smile covering her lips.

"Mary Margaret, you'll get your time. Just be patient." Her eyebrows knitted together tightly, and she closed the space between them a hair more. "Even if David wasn't your Prince Charming…" realizing the parallel, her stomach retched, and she hoped the doubtful woman overlooked it, "there's other men in the ocean. In fact, outside of Storybrooke, there's a whole world out there."

The broken woman summoned a poor smile. She scooped up her purse and strung it over her shoulder before sliding off of the stool. Her hand disappeared in the depths of her pocket, searching for a few stray ones.

"I'm heading to work." She finally spoke. Successful, she fished out a few dollar bills and placed them on the counter.

"Work?" she crossed her arms suspiciously. "There's no school today." Henry made sure to engrain that into her head a few days ago, when they had their brief visit—one she'd dearly cherished.

"I'm going back to the hospital." Mary brightened a little. "I feel like I need to go back to how things used to be; before all of this David nonsense. I've lost touch with my selflessness."

Enlightened, Emma silently mouthed 'oh', and gave a single, elongated nod. "Smart idea… I'll see you later tonight, then?"

Mary Margaret nodded. With an exasperated grin, she twinkled her fingers in a small goodbye before turning on her heels and walking out, slipping her coat on over the clean, light blue turtleneck she sported. The minute she was out of Emma's watchful glance, her face fell, and she suddenly grew a few years older. She was tired; to the point where she could run down into the sidewalk. Thoughts of David restlessly churned through her head, and the only dreams she had were fantasies with love that could not, _would_not, ever be. Her heart began to condense and char into a lump of coal; it felt like things would never be right again. In her doubt, she turned back to the thing that had brought them together—the very thing that had brought her the semblance of mind she needed now: the hospital.

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><p>Not even his lunatic, raving giggles and guffaws could quell the grief which thrummed so gravely through him.<p>

Ogres were apathetic creatures; aside from an insatiable stomach and a penchant for bloody aggression, they were fairly callous—unswayable by most breezes. Alas, some deals, once presented, are undeniable, if struck on the right nerve, and as any magical mastermind would, Rumpelstiltskin worked hard to target that Achilles heel, and within the month he'd crafted the demise of those who had forced upon the one person he cared about her own.

Wherever Belle was, she probably wasn't happy. Never had Rumpelstiltskin been one to sully his lilting thoughts with things as trivial as those who were dead and the afterlife, but—reluctantly—he found himself pondering Belle's whereabouts. When she'd catapulted herself from her lonely, gloomy tower, where did her soul flutter off to? What about the surely mangled, once beautiful body that had suffered the physical plunge?

Just thinking about the dank thoughts sent his stomach into turmoil, which was something he utterly resented. He didn't want to care in that way, yet he did—in the pit of his charred heart, he did, and it made him sick… with both detest and sorrow.

The cackling smirk faded from his face. His eyes, a grimly shade, enveloped the sight before him. Flame cracked through the air like a whip, and the utmost trepidation wafted from the populated hotspot, like an oozing, aching sore in an open, clear expanse. He could hear the ogres pursuing their lusty rampage, innocents screaming and breaking down into oblivion. In his weakness, his mind once again gravitated to the girl with the beautiful brown hair, and a (shockingly) frown tugged at the corners of his lips. Technically, he wasn't violating anything; he'd broken the deal, and she was dead, and therefore he could spark as much havoc on her loves ones as much as he liked. Yet… he _knew_ her. From their time spent with one another, he knew her, and he knew well enough she must've been surely trapped in madness to take her own life, and even if her family had been the ones to lock her away, she still would've expected him to keep his end of the bargain.

A hollow, sick chuckle rumbled in the back of his throat, and it looked as if he were carrying a one-sided conversation. He shook his head and turned his back on the chaos, nonchalantly walking another direction. While out of the watchful eye of, well, _anything_ living, he looked much more like a stalking beast than a madman. A stunning filament of humanity began to burst through him as he receded into the night, feeling just as cold as the night he'd first became the beast that kept him and _her_apart.

* * *

><p>"Mayor?"<p>

Regina looked up from her collecting pile of papers. Met with Sidney, a tired smile crossed her face, and she looked surprisingly vulnerable. Despite how misused he was, he truly was the closest thing she had to a friend; someone she could dutifully trust, and someone who could keep their mouth shut. She hadn't experienced such unconditional kindness since her father—and this time she didn't plan on sacrificing him.

"Sidney," she muttered, plucking a loose eyelash from her perfectly caked eyes, "what a surprise. What useful information do you have now?"

He shook his head. Instead, he reached into his leather messenger bag and offered out a bundle of papers, his eyes watching her carefully. He hated to love her, and loved to hate her.

"Nothing useful—just something I thought you'd want to have."

Intrigued, Regina accepted the outstretched bundle, the paper rustling loudly underneath her firm grip. Once the roll crossed the threshold of her desk, she splayed them out and unraveled them, her eyebrows shooting up with appraisal.

Unskilled, but certainly not effortless, pictures were spread across several papers, done with a marvelous collection of colors. The personnel must have been giving her things to abide her time with; the few times she'd seen her, she'd seemed restless, dying for something to toil with. Solitude had been taxing on the girl, but that was exactly what she wanted.

"Well… Nothing useful, indeed, but certainly amusing." She commented dryly, leafing through the large pages. Illustrations of Happily Ever After were scrawled on, depicting beautiful landscapes, people and things—except one particular image.

The one thing that was well-drawn was a picture of a man, a beast; a mix of both. Lo and behold, Rumpelstiltskin lied, in all of his haunting glory. Seeing such an expert portrait made her skin crawl, as if she knew too much. For a minute, she regretted not tossing her out of the blasted tower herself.

"Cute." She growled under her breath.

Carelessly, she scooped the bundle and tossed them on top of her trash can, though they were still quite visible. Her mood suddenly soured, and her overall temper shortened.

"Now, go get me something _worth_ my time."


End file.
